


To Work Its Will

by NotASong



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-09
Updated: 2015-02-09
Packaged: 2018-03-11 08:13:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3320342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotASong/pseuds/NotASong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It had always been that way, she supposed. Ever since the first time the three of them had all worked together and he told them they couldn’t just be friends. She could fool anyone but him. <em>‘For some reason’</em>, she had said. The reason was clearer now: maybe Spike was what she and Angel had been missing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Work Its Will

She was beginning to realise that Spike knew the both of them far better than they knew each other. The thought would upset her if it weren’t for the fact that there had been many times when Spike seemed to know her better than she knew herself. 

It had always been that way, she supposed. Ever since the first time the three of them had all worked together and he told them they couldn’t just be friends. She could fool anyone but him. _‘For some reason’_ , she had said. The reason was clearer now: maybe Spike was what she and Angel had been missing. 

Thinking back to Spike’s words, they applied to the three of them. Love and blood had brought them together time after time until they were all with each other now. To Buffy, the thought of having one without the other was still unbearable. Even more so than before, now that she knew what Spike and Angel had with each other. She could never bring herself to separate them either. 

There was something intense between them. More than passion, though that was certainly there and she very much enjoyed it. They cared about each other more than either one would admit, and possibly more than they even realised. It was something partly their own and partly grown from a century of history. 

In her time alone with both of them, before she had truly had both, she had never thought about it so deeply. How well the two of them had _known_ each other. Before Angel had gotten his soul he and Spike had already been with each other longer than Buffy had been with any person in her life. 

Perhaps it was because they had been soulless that Buffy had never imagined them with that sort of intimacy. True intimacy, beyond the physical (Although she hadn’t truly thought they had shared that either. To say she hadn’t _imagined_ would be a different story).

She realised it the first time Spike had called Angel _‘Liam’_. He had been teasing, no differently than usual, but she had been so struck with confusion. How was it that she had never heard Angel’s human name? Never asked, never wondered? Had she never thought about who he was before Angelus?

She couldn’t be jealous, though, because she knew they always loved her most of all. But they had loved others. Years of history with Darla and Drusilla that lasted longer than she would ever live. Spike had loved Drusilla wholly because that was who he was, regardless of conscience. He still loved her in part, but they didn’t fit together anymore. Angelus was incapable of love, they all maintained, but he still stood by Darla without his soul which was more than Buffy could say of herself.

And then there was Cordelia. Angel still talked to her sometimes, convinced she could hear him. A higher power above them all. The universe owed her that much, after what she had suffered. The Cordelia that Buffy had known was so different to the one Angel talked about. She had grown beautifully and been brutally cut down, all in Buffy’s absence.

She understood, but a part of Buffy yearned for the days that she was all that Angel cared about. But that wasn’t fair of her. He had friends now, many lost. Their absence keeping him from the true happiness that he once found only in her. 

The first place in his heart belonged to Connor now, his son with Darla’s eyes. Buffy couldn’t complain, because she felt the same for her sister. She remembered Dawn having always come first, but she knew that wasn’t the case. There was a time when Buffy and Angel loved each other above all else, but those days were gone. In both time and memory. Perhaps it was better that way.

Buffy had Riley of course, and he had been what she wanted. What she needed, even, but her heart wasn’t with him. In truth, the only two men she had ever truly been in love with were with her now. It hurt somewhat, in comparison to the parts of their love that belonged to _Dru_ or _Cordy_ , and even each other despite their reluctance to say it.

But she was with them now. Though fighting and hatred and passion they had found each other. The three of them fit together better than any two of them alone. It wasn’t brains. It wasn’t sense they had keeping them together. It _was_ friendship, sometimes, but they all needed more than that. It was blood inside them, like Spike had said, but more than that still. It was fate, destiny around them. Screaming. To work its will.


End file.
